With Switzerland’s Arnaud Tonus making his AMA Supercross debut on Saturday night, it got us thinking about some other foreign imports over the years. Here’s a look back at some first-night supercross finishes from previous newcomers.
In 1986, Jeff Leisk was a globetrotting teenager from Australia who wanted to make a go of it in America. He came over and entered the Anaheim SX (yes, the big one), where he finished a solid tenth overall in the 250 class aboard a Honda. But that was the same night that David Bailey and Rick Johnson put on their epic battle for the main event win, and Leisk’s debut was largely overlooked.
Jean-Michel Bayle came over from France in 1989 as the defending FIM 125cc World Champion and entered the first six rounds of AMA Supercross. At the Anaheim opener he landed on a hay bale off the first triple, went over the bars, and crashed out of the race! But by the end of his working vacation he was up to second-place at the Miami SX, and then won the Gatorback 250 National opener. Here’s where he started.
In 1993, French teenager Mickael Pichon became the first to follow in JMB's footsteps from France to the US. He was riding a Honda CR125 with help from Pro Circuit's Mitch Payton (who had switched his own team from Honda to Kawasaki prior to the start of the season), and he would land three straight top-ten finishes, improving from seventh (Anaheim) to second (Seattle); then he won his third race (San Diego) and set himself up for a full-time gig with Payton's Splitfire/Pro Circuit Kawasaki team. Mickael would go on to become one of the best 125 supercross riders of all time, with two East Region titles. Here are the results of his AMA debut at Anaheim 1993.
Trampas Parker was from Louisiana, but he's best known as a Grand Prix racer after he moved over as a teenager when things weren't working out here in the states. He went on to win two FIM World Championships in his AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame career. But he did have one AMA Supercross podium, and it came in the first ever 125 SX race, the 1985 West Region opener at San Diego, in the old Jack Murphy Stadium.
Look closely at that 1985 San Diego 125cc race and you will see a lot of "first finishes" for some well-known guys, including fourth-place Bob Moore (yes, another future FIM World Champion), and future GP racers Tyson Vohland (second) and Bader Manneh (sixth). So, four out of the top six in that first-ever 125 SX race would enjoy success as Grand Prix contenders!
In 1992, Belgium’s Stefan Everts decided to do the first half-dozen rounds, JMB-style, and scored a solid ninth-place finish in his AMA Supercross debut at the Houston Astrodome. He repeated his ninth-place finish one week later at Angel Stadium in Anaheim. The winner of both races was Yamaha’s Damon Bradshaw.
We all remember Sebastien Tortelli's shocking win in the 1998 AMA Supercross opener at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, riding the #103 Kawasaki KX250. It was one of the biggest surprises in the history of the championship. But it wasn't Sebastien's first AMA Supercross race. He finished fifteenth and tenth in two appearances in the 125 West Region two years earlier, before he won either of his two FIM world crowns.
Team Suzuki sported a revamped effort in 1995, with Roger DeCoster returning to the brand as team manager, and 1993 and 1994 250 GP Champion Greg Albertyn moving to the US Albee didn't have much supercross experience, though, and crashed immediately at the Orlando opener and separated his shoulder. This led to the famous story of Greg getting put into an ambulance, but then the ambulance was blocked into the parking lot by other vehicles! The injury and bad timing pretty much summed up Albee's first few years in the US.
French import David Vuillemin made his AMA Supercross debut in 1996, riding a Kawasaki KX125 to fourth-place at the Anaheim SX opener. He would return to Europe after three races that year, then come back for the whole West Region in 1997, winning a round in Seattle, only this time aboard a Yamaha. He would keep moving back and forth between SX in America and the GPs in Europe until 2000, when he finally moved here full-time.
In 1997, there were two Los Angeles Supercross races at the Coliseum as Anaheim was getting a makeover. The second LASX that year is mostly remembered for Brian Deegan ghost-riding his bike across the finish line after winning, but it’s also the same night Stephane Roncada made his SX debut, finishing sixth. But we’re really not sure why he missed the LA opener! No matter, Ronron became a contender quickly and eventually won himself an AMA 125 Supercross title for Yamaha of Troy. He’s still riding… Well, he is in MX-vs-ATV, anyway! Stephane works on the popular videogame as one of the designers. He even penned this video game history piece for us. /2014/11/05/450-words-10-best-moto-games
Grant Langston was the FIM 125 World Champion in 2001 when he moved to America, and his supercross debut came in the Anaheim 1 SX in the 125 class. But learning SX proved to be quite a chore at first for the South African (just as it had been for his countryman and three-time FIM World Champion Greg Albertyn). Langston crashed a couple of times in the weeks leading up to the race and then crashed again once inside Angel Stadium. He would end the evening in nineteenth place. GL would get much, much better—by the end of the West Region he was winning races.
Mitch Payton's powerful Splitfire/Pro Circuit Kawasaki team was ravaged by injuries partway through the 2002 supercross season, so he picked up a little-known Frenchman named Eric Sorby, and Sorby landed on the podium in his US debut in Houston. He followed that with podiums in St. Louis and Pontiac—making him three for three. Sorby was a great talent and unique personality, but never managed to get a win in the US.
Perhaps the most unheralded, least-remembered debut race for a foreign-born superstar came at the 1999 San Diego Supercross, when a 16-year-old Australian named Chad Reed finished seventeenth in the 125 class on an RM125. That was it—he went back to Australia, went to Europe for a year, and didn't return to the US until 2002. We can safely bet not a single person in the San Diego stands that night remembers seeing Reed in that race. Here are the results.
In 2006, Ben Townley signed on with Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki, but was injured before the SX opener and missed the entire indoor season. The next year he entered the East Region 125 SX. His debut race was the Atlanta SX, where his engine seized and he finished dead last. One week later in St. Louis, the likable New Zealander won, and he would go on to dig out of his early 25-point hole and end up winning the East Region title. Who put the 25-point deficit on him in the first place? Ryan Dungey, who was also making his SX debut that night in Atlanta. Here are the results.
In 2009, Tommy Searle landed here from England and tried something different: He sat out supercross and didn’t start racing until outdoors in May, where he began with a solid fourth-place overall finish. When he made his SX debut in 2010 at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, he finished seventh. One week later Searle placed eighth on his Red Bull KTM SX-F250. But then he got hurt—exactly what he was trying not to do when he sat out the previous season—and those were the only two SX races of his career. One year later Tommy was back in Europe on the GP circuit.
In 2011, Ken Roczen was mostly unknown here in America, even though he had won the MX2 (250) class at the previous year’s Motocross of Nations at Thunder Valley in Colorado. He was still based in Europe, but the German wanted to get his feet wet in supercross before making the move here full-time in 2012. Roczen finished seventh in a race won by Josh Hansen.
Here are two more interesting facts about that Anaheim 2011 race:
1.) Anaheim ’11 was also the SX debut for Eli Tomac, who sat out supercross the previous year and focused on getting a good (and healthy) start outdoors. Eli finished three spots behind Roczen in tenth. How many times are we going to find historical cross overs between Roczen and Tomac?
2.) Anaheim ’11 was also the SX debut of former MX2 World Champion Tyla Rattray, who actually moved to America two years earlier but missed SX in both 2009 (he sat out to prepare for motocrss, like Searle) and ’10 (he hurt his shoulder right before the season began). The South African finished third, making his the best debut of the night!
